GUWAHATI: Prohibitory orders were imposed as Prime Minister Narendra Modi faced angry protests from anti-citizenship bill agitators when he arrived here on a two-day visit to the northeast on Friday evening. It was the PM who had first formally announced the Centre’s decision to amend the Citizenship Act at a public rally in Bengali-dominated Silchar last month. Security was further tightened after All Assam Students’ Union (Aasu) and Krishak Mukti Sangram Samity announced that they would burn the PM’s effigies and hoist black flags across the state on Saturday when Modi addresses a public rally at Changsari on the outskirts of the city. Despite a light drizzle, groups of All Assam Students’ Union (Aasu) activists waved flags and shouted anti-Modi slogans as the PM’s convoy passed by their office to reach the Raj Bhavan. In a swift action, police locked the gates of the Aasu office and confined the demonstrators within its premises. They also barricaded the Aasu office with bamboos. Just across the street opposite the Aasu office, BJP activists, mostly women, had gathered with party flags to welcome the PM. Police had banned movement of people and vehicles along the stretch between the Aasu office and the Raj Bhavan that runs alongside the Brahmaputra and is basically a residential area. The first group of Aasu protesters had gathered at Gauhati University (GU) which stands on the road between the airport and the city. Aasu has its headquarters located at GU. “This is the PM’s first visit to Assam after the (citizenship) bill was passed by the Lok Sabha. We just wanted to register our protest against it in a befitting manner. We will not allow the Centre to impose any such Act on us,” Aasu adviser Samujjal Bhattacharya said. Before Modi’s arrival, Aasu activists had burnt copies of the bill across the state. Looking unruffled, Modi smiled and waved to the protesting students from inside his car. Chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal, who often faces such angry demonstrations, was following the PM in a separate car. Elsewhere in the city, Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) workers, led by their president Atul Bora, staged a march with torches but were stopped by police as they came close to the PM’s route. Until the Centre introduced the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016, in the Lok Sabha, AGP was an ally of BJP in the state government.

On Saturday morning, the PM will go to Itanagar where he will lay the foundations for a greenfield airport at Hollongi, a tunnel at Sela and a permanent campus of Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) at Jote. He will dedicate the 110-MW Pare Hydroelectric Plant to the nation. The PM will inaugurate the upgraded Tezu airport and 50 health and wellness centres and will declare 100% household electrification in Arunachal Pradesh under the Saubhagya scheme. From there he will come to Changsari in Assam’s Kamrup district to lay the foundations of Guwahati-North Guwahati Bridge over Brahmaputra, North East Gas Grid (NEGG), Numaligarh RefineryLimited (NRL)’s bio-refinery, a 729-km gas pipeline from Barauni to Guwahati and City Gas Distribution Networks in Kamrup, Cachar, Hailakandi & Karimganj districts. Modi will also inaugurate a Hollong Modular Gas Processing plant in Tinsukia. The PM will also do the bhumi puja of an AIIMS centre at Changsari, where he will also address a public meeting. The last leg of the PM’s visit will be in Agartala on Saturday itself. He will dedicate the Garjee-Belonia railway line to the nation through unveiling of a plaque at Swami Vivekananda Stadium in Agartala. The PM will also inaugurate a new complex of Tripura Institute of Technology at Narsingarh. Modi will also unveil a statue of Maharaja Bir Bikram Kishore Manikya Bahadur at Maharaja Bir Bikram Airport in Agartala.